Bears hire CFL coach Trestman to replace Smith

This Nov. 22, 2008 file photo shows Montreal Alouettes head football coach Marc Trestman during a press conference in Montreal. The Chicago Bears have hired Trestman as their head coach. He replaces Lovie Smith, who was fired Monday, Dec. 31, 2012 after nine seasons. Trestman spent the past five seasons with the CFLís Montreal Alouettes and led them to two Grey Cup titles. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Nathan Denette, File)

CHICAGO — The Chicago Bears hired Montreal Alouettes coach Marc Trestman on Wednesday to replace the fired Lovie Smith and gave him two basic tasks — fix the offense and lead the team to the playoffs on a consistent basis.

How he meshes with quarterback Jay Cutler could go a long way toward determining his success.

It’s the first head coaching job in the NFL for Trestman, a longtime assistant in the league who spent the past five seasons coaching the CFL’s Alouettes and led them to two Grey Cup titles. Trestman was an offensive coordinator with Cleveland, San Francisco, Arizona and Oakland.

Chicago general manager Phil Emery cast a wide net in his search, meeting with at least 13 candidates. Besides Trestman, he also brought back Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and the Indianapolis Colts’ Bruce Arians for second interviews.

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Trestman wasted little time starting to assemble his staff.

A person familiar with the situation said the Bears hired New Orleans Saints offensive line coach Aaron Kromer as their offensive coordinator, hoping to revive a unit that often sputtered with Mike Tice calling the plays. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the move had not been announced.

Kromer served as the Saints’ head coach for six games this season while interim coach Joe Vitt was suspended for his role in the bounty scandal. Saints coach Sean Payton had to sit out the year.

The Dallas Cowboys, meanwhile, reported on their website that special teams coach Joe DeCamillis was leaving to become Chicago’s assistant head coach/special teams coordinator.

For Chicago, the moves come after a 10-win season in which the Bears fell apart after winning seven of their first eight games.

Smith was let go after nine years, ending a run that included a trip to the Super Bowl but also saw Chicago miss the playoffs five of the past six seasons. That move did not sit well with some players at the time, but Cutler and star receiver Brandon Marshall are looking forward to working with Trestman.

“He’s been successful wherever he’s been,” Cutler told the Bears’ website. “He’s from the West Coast coaching tree, which I’m familiar with. It’s what I came into the league with, with (Mike) Shanahan (with the Denver Broncos in 2006), so I’m looking forward to it.

“He understands quarterbacks. He understands their thought process and the minds of quarterbacks and what we have to go through. It’s going to be a quarterback-friendly system and I can’t wait to get started with him.”

On Twitter, Marshall made his feelings clear.

“Heard so many GREAT things about Coach Trestman can’t wait to follow his lead,” he wrote. “Reading his book now.”

Trestman wrote “Perseverance: Life Lessons on Leadership and Teamwork,” a motivational biography released in 2010.

The Bears, who have scheduled a news conference for Thursday morning, are turning to the 57-year-old Trestman in part because of his background with quarterbacks.

He worked with Bernie Kosar as an assistant at the University of Miami and again when he was on the Browns’ staff in the 1980s. Trestman helped the Raiders reach the Super Bowl at the end of the 2002 season with an offense he geared for Rich Gannon, the league’s MVP that year.

In recent years, Trestman has worked as a consultant in the NFL and in the offseason helped quarterbacks entering the league — including Cutler for a few days. His biggest task will be maximizing the man behind center and getting the offense to click.

That’s something that never really happened under Smith, who oversaw a top defense with stars such as Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs but could not solve the issues on the other side of the ball. The Bears’ offense never ranked higher than 15th under Smith, and the problems in that area along with the postseason misses ultimately led to his dismissal.

The Bears have big holes on the offensive line and at tight end, but the No. 1 task is connecting with Cutler. As gifted as he is, questions remain about his makeup and demeanor. He has one year left on his contract, and the Bears have to figure out if he can lead them to the top. In Chicago, the deck at times has been stacked against him.

His relationship with former offensive coordinator Ron Turner seemed icy, and he took a beating in Mike Martz’s system. Cutler will now be working in his fourth system since the Bears acquired him from Denver in 2009.

Besides the issues on the line, Cutler also lacked a go-to receiver his first three years in Chicago, but that changed in a big way before this season. The Bears hired Emery to replace the fired Jerry Angelo as GM after a late collapse last year, and although he was given a mandate to work with Smith for at least a year, he was able to retool the roster.

The biggest move? That was the trade with Miami for Marshall, Cutler’s favorite target in Denver.

Marshall set club records for catches and yards, but the Bears still ranked 28th on offense.

It didn’t help that receivers Alshon Jeffery and Earl Bennett missed time with injuries or that running back Matt Forte was banged up and uninvolved at times, whether it was in the running or passing game.

More than anything, Cutler would like to see some continuity.

“It’s hard,” he told the team’s website. “You start back at zero every year with the entire offense, so it’s definitely challenging. I think if you look across the league at elite and very good quarterbacks, they’ve all been in systems for numerous years. That’s what our goal is here, for coach Trestman to come in and install his system and us win games and keep him around for a long time to be able to grow year in and year out in this system and get everyone better.”

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — The Arizona Cardinals, one of two NFL teams still looking for a head coach, have interviewed Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and plan to talk to Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator Bruce Arians.

Bevell, 43, was interviewed on Wednesday at Cardinals headquarters. He was the fifth known candidate to interview for the job vacated when the team fired Ken Whisenhunt the day after the season ended.

It wasn’t known when the Arians interview would be held, but that news, first reported by NFL.com and confirmed by The Associated Press, indicates Arizona’s search will go on a few more days, at least.

Arians, a finalist for the Chicago job that went to Marc Trestman on Wednesday, is running out of options if he wants to be a head coach next season as positions were filled in rapid succession on Wednesday, leaving only the Arizona and Jacksonville jobs still open.

Arians spent 12 games as interim head coach in Indianapolis while coach Chuck Pagano was treated for leukemia. The Colts went 9-3 in those dozen games with Arians in charge. He succeeded Whisenhunt as offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh and was there for five seasons before leaving to go to the Colts and their new rookie quarterback Andrew Luck. Arians also was head coach at Temple for five years.

Of the others who interviewed with the Cardinals, one is off the market. Mike McCoy, Denver’s offensive coordinator, took the head coaching job in San Diego earlier this week. The Cardinals also interviewed their defensive coordinator Ray Horton, Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden and Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley.

Bevell, who grew up in nearby Scottsdale and played for Chaparral High, has a career of working with successful quarterbacks, including Seattle’s rookie sensation Brett Favre. If he got the Arizona job, he’d be trying to repair the worst quarterback situation in the league. Arizona started four people at the position and the only one who had any success, Kevin Kolb, went down to a season-ending injury in Week 6.

“I was real fortunate to start my career with a great quarterback in Brett Favre,” Bevell said after his interview, “but there were a lot of other guys along the way that I was able to work with, whether it was in college or in the positions that I’ve had after that. ...

“It doesn’t matter if it’s the quarterback, your tight end, your running back, what do they do well? We want to accentuate those positives, and the things that they don’t do as well. We need to cover those up and make their strengths come out. That’s what I’ve tried to do.”

He said the Seahawks “just loved” Russell Wilson from the start.

“We loved his intangibles, loved how he played the game, how important it was to him, his belief system that he had in himself and that he was going to always be successful,” Bevell said, “ but then it was my job to figure out what he did well.”

Bevell said that from the first game against Arizona, which the Seahawks lost, to the last spectacular performance in the close loss at Atlanta last weekend “we evolved and we changed.”

“It was all changing to do what was best for him, but then also to do what was best for the other guys that are around him to help them all be successful.”

Along the way, the Seahawks beat Arizona 58-0 in Seattle. He was asked why he would be a good fit with the Cardinals.

“I’ve had the opportunity the last two years to be in this division,” Bevell said. “I’ve also spent a long time in the NFC North, and I’ve just really been an NFC coach all along. So I do know a little more about it.”

He also knows the Phoenix area, for sure.

“It’s also exciting because it’s my hometown,” Bevell said. “It’s where I grew up. I’ve got a lot of friends, and obviously my whole family still lives here, so I think that’s an attraction for me as well.”

After leaving high school, Bevell was a redshirt freshman quarterback at Northern Arizona, then went on a two-year Mormon mission before enrolling at Wisconsin — the same school where Russell excelled — and quarterbacked the Badgers to a Rose Bowl victory over UCLA.

Bevell, who also interviewed for the Bears job, said he only knows the Cardinals’ quarterback problems from afar.

“I know it’s been a tough situation,” he said. “There have been quarterbacks, kind of this last year particularly, coming in and out, playing four guys. There have been injuries. There have been all kinds of different reasons. But that will be, if something happens that I’m the head coach, that will be something that we’ve got to rectify, got to figure it out, what the best thing will be for the Arizona Cardinals and be able to go from there.”

He does, after all, have that experience dealing with quarterbacks.

“I’ve definitely been schooled in that,” Bevell said. “We had some crazy situations going on, particularly with Brett and how those situations came about. So I do have some experience in that area. Obviously, I truly believe that so goes the quarterback, so goes your team.”

Bevell was offensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings for five seasons before joining Pete Carroll in Seattle in 2011.